


i have outlasted all desire

by goodmorningbeloved



Category: Captain America: CIvil War (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, Mirror of Erised, outsider pov, post-CW, vaguely into Infinity War territory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-09
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-12-13 07:38:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11755143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodmorningbeloved/pseuds/goodmorningbeloved
Summary: “I see Bucky in mine,” Steve says then, and Tony stiffens, squares his shoulders. “And Sam, and Nat, and the rest of the team.”Tony looks away fully now. The implication is there, Stephen knows, and it must hurt.-Stephen Strange observes Tony, Steve, and a mirror.





	i have outlasted all desire

**Author's Note:**

> this is for the "mirror image" square on my stony bingo card. 
> 
> my confidence in this is shaky?? i have so many Thoughts on the mess that is CW and i acknowledge that there are disagreements within fandom (many of which have merits & i don't intend to discredit here at all, though there's bias here bc i was personally on tony's side), which makes me hesitant to post this, but i didn't really wanna focus on the disagreements anyway. i wanted to focus on steve & tony's shared interest in protecting others, which i firmly believe was a strong motivation for both of them despite their other differences. i've also yet to see Dr. Strange and I actually know little of Strange other than what I've read in the comics, but for some reason I was intent on writing this in his POV so please forgive any inaccuracies???
> 
> constructive criticism & feedback would be appreciated but not necessary ahh. as always, thank you for reading!!
> 
> title is from [a poem](https://www.cordula.ws/poems/outlasted.html) by Alexander Pushkin.

Two men sit in front of a mirror, neither looking at it or at each other. It sounds like the beginning of a joke.

“We do not have time for this, Strange,” Thor rumbles. Stephen notes the audible itch in his voice, an impulse to _do_ instead of _sit and watch their friends sit in a small room together._ There is, after all, a threat out there, very real and real imminent. “We idle when we should be preparing.”

“You have allowed me this much so far,” Stephen says placatingly. “Give it a few more minutes.”

“There is no _time_.”

“On the contrary, there _is_ time, however little.” He folds his arms across his chest, stares down impassively from the observation deck and into the room below. From here, he cannot see Rogers or Stark’s face, but he can read their bodies well enough: the periodical shifts of Rogers’s head, as if fighting not to turn to Stark first; Stark’s tight shoulders, the subtle angle of his head away from the situation at hand but the less-subtle angle of his body towards Rogers. “If we fix this, if _they_ fix this, we may last a considerable time longer during the battle itself.”

Stephen Strange has heard enough pieces from enough people to deduce the nature of the Avengers, the nature of the relationship between Iron Man and Captain America. He has asked enough correct questions and received enough tired answers to reconstruct a vague timeline that begins with a scrawny boy sitting in a recruitment office and ends with a beaten man braced against the winds of Siberia.

He has seen these people — these _Avengers_ , they call themselves — fight well, and he has seen them fight even better together. On the field, they are driven by muscle memories that overlap and intertwine with each other. 

A distraction before a swift, unseen strike. 

An outstretched hand at the other end of a leap of faith.

The day before, he glimpsed Iron Man half caught by a wreckage of a building with only one arm free, seconds from being swarmed by a cluster of alien creatures. As he sped towards the man to help, he watched Iron Man throw out his free arm and fire a repulsor ray not at his assailants, but at one that had leapt at Steve Rogers, and then he had watched Captain America barrel through the battlefield with no regard for the creatures hot on his heels, equally blind as he sought to help Tony Stark.

In the end, neither of them had needed his help after all; after Stark was free, the fight was clearly tipped in their odds, and Stephen had turned his attention to other parts of the battle.

The imagery has not left him since.

It is impressive, he decides, how gracefully and beautifully they _fit_ in combat, but how they skirt and flit around each other when bare-faced in the compound.

This is why Stephen asked them to come as they were: No armors, no shields—the physical sort, at least.

It has been nearly an hour of silence now, and Stephen presses his lips into a grim line as he accepts that in order to get these two men to see pasts the walls and walls and walls built so carefully around their heads, their hearts, he must be patient.

And so he is.

He tells Thor that he may leave, that he will keep Stark and Rogers for a half hour more, and that he will return them to draw up their strategies once he is certain that this will not work. (Once he is certain that his perception of Iron Man and Captain America’s relationship was incorrect.)

Stephen watches Stark and Rogers not watch each other. Stephen watches the mirror between them, standing tall and sleek and imposing. Stephen watches the nothingness reflected in the glass. And he wonders.

It is Rogers who breaks the silence. “He didn’t tell you what kind of experiment this would be?”

“Why would he?” Stark returns.

This makes Rogers hesitate. “Well. Because you and he… You’re…” His fingers twitch where they’ve formed a fist over his thigh. “You’re friends, aren’t you?”

Stark chuckles. It’s a humorless, brittle sound.

It makes Rogers’s fists clench. Stephen catches the regret immediately: The way Rogers’s head turns to Stark, hold for a few moments, before looking away again. Rogers seems to have words coalescing in his mouth, but instead they leave as a quiet sigh.

“It’s all about the mirror,” Stark replies. The sharpness hasn’t been lost from his voice; it may even be sharper.

“Really?” It’s Rogers’s turn to deadpan. “Couldn’t tell.”

Stark leans back in his chair, folding his arms loosely over his chest and shaking his head. Stephen imagines he closed his eyes. “He wants us to look at it. In it. Then we say ‘Thanos’ three times over, wait ’til he pops up behind us, and we kill him. Obviously.”

“You haven’t looked, have you?”

Stephen scrutinizes the back of Stark’s head, how it’s slightly angled downwards and to the right. His eyes must be fixed on some spot on the floor, oblivious to everything around him, to the mirror, to Steve Rogers, who, now that he has looked at Tony, cannot seem to look away.

“Of course I have,” Stark bites out. “Hard to miss when it’s right there.”

“And?” Steve persists.

“And I’m waiting for Strange to unlock the door so I can tell him what I saw, he can collect his data, and I can leave.”

Steve is easier to read. He does not try to hide his movements; he openly turns to the mirror. “You saw, then? The engraving at the top?” When he’s met with silence, he pushes on: “I think it might be…a rune, or something in an ancient language.”

Stark’s foot-tapping stops, and Stephen feels himself smile. _Clever, Rogers_.

A small, quick twitch of Stark’s head. A beat. Another shift. If he’d blinked, Stephen would have missed it. “Not an ancient language I recognize.” He cuts himself off awkwardly, as if he struggled to catch his tongue from saying any more.

“Is it a spell, you think?” Stephen does not know the extent of Steve’s knowledge in the mystic arts, but Steve clearly knows how to use it to his advantage.

“Don’t know.”

“Me neither. I’ve been trying to figure it out… _Eri…_ ” Steve’s head tilts upwards in earnest as he sounds out the vowels experimentally. “ _Eri-sed…stra eh-ru…_ ”

Stark, with his instinctive hunger for knowledge and for _sharing_ knowledge, plays beautifully into the Captain’s hand. “They’re English alphabet letters, just arranged backwards,” he snaps, but Stephen notices that the venom isn’t really there. His mind must be racing. He’s itching to analyze it. “ _I show not your face, but your heart’s desire_.”

The words have an effect even through the one-way glass. Stephen finds himself suppressing a shiver. 

“Huh.” Steve stands up, hands slipping loosely into the pockets of his pants. He takes two steps, and Stephen catches Stark flinch, then reluctantly relax when Steve moves towards the mirror instead. “That’s only half true, I think.”

Here is an interesting development: Stark’s head finally turns in Steve’s direction, and Tony spends the next several seconds in silence, gaze hung on the other man. His foot has begun tapping again, but this time Stephen notes indecision rather than impatience.

“What does it mean if I still see myself?” Steve asks. He stands in front of the mirror, and while Stephen cannot see his face nor reflection, the simultaneous hesitation and sincerity in his voice makes it easy to hypothesize an expression.

“Congrats, you’re a narcissist?” Tony ventures flippantly, but now he is standing too.

At first, Tony simply stands in place, and Stephen can’t tell if he’s looking at Steve or the mirror. Then Steve makes the first move again, talking a half step to the side and finally baring himself to Tony. Tony seems to flinch, his leg twitching in an aborted step backwards.

For some time, they simply look at each other.

Then Tony takes a step forward, and Steve makes further room for him.

And they stand side by side in front of the Mirror of Erised.

Stephen watches carefully. He had missed the first time Steve glimpsed into the mirror and could not gauge his reaction, but he witnesses Tony’s now: The sudden rigidness that overcomes his body, the curling of his fists, the tightening in his jaw.

“What about you?” Steve asks, voice soft.

Tony doesn’t miss a beat. “I see myself too.” He crosses his arms again, and there it is, one of many walls trying to come back up. “But if that’s a sign of narcissism, who’s really surprised, huh.”

“Maybe not.” Steve glances back for only a fleeting second. “Are you…”

_Are you with anyone else?_ Stephen tries to fill in the blanks. _Are you standing by yourself? Are you alone?_ But Steve has more tact than he thought, because he says none of these things.

“Do you see anything else?”

“Not sure if you’re the person I want to share my  _heart’s desire_ with right now, Cap,” Tony jabs, but the slip of the nickname is its own victory. Stephen thinks he sees a fluster creep up the back of Tony’s neck, but Tony is otherwise unruffled.

“I see Bucky in mine,” Steve says then, and Tony stiffens, squares his shoulders. “And Sam, and Nat, and the rest of the team.”

Tony looks away fully now. The implication is there, Stephen knows, and it must hurt. “Are we holding hands and singing Kumbaya?”

Stephen imagines Tony rolling his eyes. Then he imagines Tony not really meaning it.

“We’re together,” Steve offers.

“Peachy.”

“Peggy’s there, too.”

“Like I said, _peachy_. Strange, you collected enough _data_ yet?” Tony whirls around to look up at the one-way mirror, and Stephen finds himself face-to-face with Tony Stark for the first time since he herded him and Steve inside the room. Tony is plainly annoyed, but he also sees something else—a flicker of hurt quickly smothered.

Stephen doesn’t respond. In the silence, Steve takes a chance again.

“Maybe he did have a point with this,” he says quietly. “Maybe this is supposed to…mean something.”

Tony closes his eyes and inhales, slow and deliberate. “Mean _what_?”

“I don’t know. If you’d tell me what you see, maybe we could—”

“You’ve got some nerve,” Tony interrupts, voice like steel. He begins to turn towards Steve at an angle where Stephen can still see the deep furrow of his brows. “I helped you come back and I helped the others come back because I _do not turn my back on my teammates_. I fought to grant you all amnesty we’re more useful fighting together than with half of us scattered underground. I _fought_ for you all, _was_ fighting for you all from the very beginning, even after you _left_ me because I wanted the team together.” Stephen sees how Stark can be infuriating, lashing out word after word without giving Steve an opportunity to speak for himself. “And if I tore the team apart by signing, you fucking _smashed_ it to smithereens by running. I did _not_ help you come back because I _forgave_ you for that, Steve, because I never did. I still _don’t_.”

This is not fury, as Stephen expected it would be. This is fury wizened by four years of separation, fury-turned-resignation, fury-turned-grief, and is a conversation that has clearly been half-had before, given the way Steve sighs raggedly and crosses his arms too. “I don’t want to fight each other, Tony,” he says despite the defensiveness of his posture, and Stephen sees how this man rooting himself solidly into the ground can be infuriating too. “We shouldn’t be, not now. We’re facing a threat bigger than all of us, and we have to move past this—”

“I _did,_ Steve! And you know what, never mind that you have no goddamn right to tell me when to move on,” Tony flares, and Steve flinches. “I _have_.”

“Have we, Tony?” he murmurs. “Because we’re still not talking to each other over comms, we’re _avoiding_ each other on the field until one of us makes some stupid mistake because I’m only half focused on what’s happening while the rest of my mind’s trying to figure out how to help you from the other side of the fight because suddenly I can’t just be there, I can’t just be next to you and make sure you’re safe like I used to be able to—”

“Don’t pretend you give a damn, R—”

“I _do_ give a damn, Tony!” Steve snarls, and Tony physically takes a step back. In an instant, Stephen’s hand is hovering over the door switch, but he hesitates long enough for Steve to realize what he’s done and shrink back, looking _miserable._

Perhaps Tony doesn’t know Steve as well as he thinks he does, after all.

“I care about you. But, _God_ — Do you know how _awful_ it is, analyzing and overthinking how you might react if I were to help you in a fight? How many days we’ll ignore each other after you save my ass, or I save yours?”

There is a minute tremble in Tony’s shoulders but his walls hold fast.

“I _am_ sorry for what I’ve done. I don’t expect you to forgive me, not after what I… what I did to you.” It’s hard, Stephen can tell, for the man to admit this. “I was wrong about your parents. And I— I was wrong about the Accords. But we _have_ to at least call a truce for now. I need to know you’ll have my back out there, because I don’t believe for one second that you only see yourself in that mirror. We want the same thing, Tony—even if we have different ways of getting there, in the end, we want the team and the people safe.”

It’s a gamble, Stephen knows. It is impossible to tell what others truly see in the mirror—at least, without the aide of magic.

“And we can’t keep them safe if we’re still fighting each other. At least I’m positive _I_ can’t, because—you know, even after everything, I just keep thinking it’s _you_. You push me.” And now Steve sounds helpless in this confession, but perhaps closer to a deep truth than either of them have been before. “I’m not half as good as anything as I am when I’m doing it next to you.”

There is a heavy pause, and Stephen watches a jumble of emotions flicker through Tony’s eyes. For all Stark claims to be a businessman, his eyes can be very telling.

“If you’re looking for a blind follower, you’re not asking the right guy,” Tony mutters.

“God, no. I want— I want someone I can trust will do the right thing. Because it might come down between me and anything else, and you’re the only one I know who’d be able to make the call.”

Tony closes his eyes, swallows hard, and it strikes Stephen that perhaps Steve doesn’t know Tony as well as he thinks, either.

_Fools,_ Stephen thinks. But he also thinks he understands now what the Avengers meant when they said, _They love each other._

“Fine,” Tony says, releasing a long breath. His body appears to succumb to gravity, shoulders sloping down tiredly and hands open by his sides. “Yeah. Fight _with_ you for now. Save _fighting_ you for later.” He gives a short laugh that’s empty of humor. “I can do that. For the _planet’s_ sake.”

The rest of Steve’s admission goes unaddressed.

But Steve looks relieved at what he does receive. “Thank you, Tony.” The fight visibly leaves the soldier too, and his arms fall away from his chest. They falter for a moment, as if debating whether to reach out or not. Steve doesn’t. 

“Yeah. Anytime.” Tony flashes a sudden smile—or less of a smile and more just a forced upturn of his lips. “Now, if we’re done here—”

Tony turns up to him again, and Stephen considers.

He opens the door. He clears his throat and projects into the room, “Thank you, gentlemen.”

Tony scoffs something under his breath as he ambles out of the room. Steve stays for a moment longer, looking small. Lost.

After a pause, Stephen clears his throat. “I believe he will keep his word, Captain,” he offers. It isn’t much, and it startles Steve, as if he forgot why he was in the room in the first place. 

Steve looks up at him now too, and Stephen cocks his head even though the other cannot see him through the glass. 

Eventually, Steve Rogers leaves the room too, leaving the mirror and two empty chairs.

 

-

 

It is some time later that he has the opportunity to walk into the room himself. He knows as soon as he steps within vicinity of the mirror; he hears its hushed whispers, its insistent pull to _look, come look_.

There is much of it that remains to be understood, but he does know that it is not dangerous…to those who are not afraid to see the truth, at least.

He knows what he will see if _he_ looks. This is not what he is after.

With a wave of his hand, he casts away his truth and compels the mirror to show him another.

The glass mists. The glass clears.

He does not recognize nearly half of the people that fill the mirror, masked and unmasked, reaching for each other and smiling, laughing. He does not recognize the elderly woman who appears next to him with a hand on his forearm, but he does recognize James Barnes standing next to her, and Sam Wilson standing next to him, both looking a little worse-for-wear but smiling through their masks.

He recognizes Tony Stark, by his side, hand in his.

With a wave of his hand, he trades in this truth for another.

The woman becomes James Rhodes, standing well despite the braces framing his legs. Barnes is replaced a couple, man and woman holding each other close, the woman’s hand smoothed over the curve of his shoulder. It takes longer to discern the rest, and he realizes it’s because none of them are in uniform: Barton and Lang with easy smiles, surrounded by what appears to be their family. Romanoff crouched down in front of one of the children. Maximoff leaning into Vision, the god of thunder laughing soundlessly with Banner.

And civilians, perhaps: A man in a suit and badge, cradling the waist of a woman as they smile at each other, oblivious to the rest. A redheaded woman with tired but patient eyes. A boy, younger than the rest, standing in front of him, brown hair tousled and eyes bright in a grin.

And Rogers and Barnes physically standing closest to him but perhaps farther in every other sense, wrapped up in each other, smiling, smiling, smiling, until Rogers turns to his reflection with a softened expression, reaches for his — for Tony’s — hand.

A close replica of Steve’s truth. The man had gambled right, then.

Stephen lingers.

He has many questions, why Rogers and Stark won't just _admit_ and realize that they are more alike than they think. Why they swing circles around each other when they itch _for_ each other. Why they do not tell each other, _I would like you to be part of my future._

But he has also learned something, he decides. 

He can only hope that Rogers and Stark have learned something too.

Stephen doesn’t bother waving away the image and turns to walk away. In his absence, Steve Rogers’s hand will curl around an empty space.

_Perhaps after the fighting is done_ , Stephen muses. Whatever was between Iron Man and Captain America appears to be mitigated for now. As for Tony Stark and Steve Rogers—  _Perhaps i_ _n time._

Yes. Perhaps in time.

**Author's Note:**

> "[They love each other.](http://68.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0fi1sIX4u1qhe9xv.png)"  
> "[I'm not half as good as anything as I am when I'm doing it next to you](http://68.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_letbncEjlI1qa5wx0o1_500.jpg)," though spoken by Tony.


End file.
